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The D Block should be given over for public safety

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  January 25th, 2011 at 05:00 PM  | 

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Here at RedState I always hesitate before I praise a proposal by a Democrat. This is a site committed to achieving conservative aims through the Republican party, and I agree with that commitment. But once in a while, on issues less politically charged, a Democrat will come up with something reasonable. This is one of those times.

I’ve looked at the issue, thought about the consequences, and I can’t find any reason to oppose the efforts by Senator Jay Rockefeller, Democrat that he is, to set aside for public safety use the so-called D block of wireless frequencies, efforts he also made last year. We learned on 9/11 that in a crisis we need different public safety groups to be able to talk to each other. It’s not enough to let them go on their own. We see similar issues every time there’s a major wildfire in the west, when expert teams congregate from throughout the region.

It’s important for emergency response teams to be able to coordinate. Some say we’d have gotten more firefighters out of the World Trade Center before collapse, had we built a better public safety communications network by 2001. So as much as I think auctions are a tremendously efficient way to allocate wireless broadcast resources in general, this is a specific case where I think we need to bypass that and simply allocate the D block to a new national safety grid.

I’m told some Republicans would like to put the D block up for auction, trusting in the free market to decide whether the D block is better used in other ways. However the FCC already tried to auction that portion of the spectrum in 2008. We set a reserve price ($1.3 billion), but nobody was willing to pay it, so that auction failed like an eBay auction for a worthless heirloom.

If we believe that public safety groups nationwide do not need the full D block to themselves, but can get by with only part of it, we can always find a free market compromise. We can give the D block to public safety groups, but on a regional basis allow them to resell at auction those portions of the spectrum they’re not using, driving the proceeds possibly to fund deployment of our new national, interoperable system. These auctions would also allow private safety groups, such as private hospitals, to buy into the system.

So much of our collective examination of the 9/11 attacks, and their response, has focused on political hot button issues like our military response or Trutherism. Our need for interoperable communications just couldn’t compete for airtime with issues like those. So this issue has not split on partisan lines, nor does it need to, and I’m fine with that.

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COMMENTS

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  • bobmontgomery

    ….Internet security, or the maintenance of cyberspace integrity for vital public functions, or purely an emergency operations communications deal?..i.e., if the government has what it needs, does this mean th people will continue to be able to peaceably assemble over the air, or the wire? Separate issues?

  • Finrod

    Once in a blue moon a Democrat will have a good idea, and it’s important that in those rare circumstances that we be bipartisan and get it done.

  • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

    does not mean that it isn’t there. I will never trust that socialist jackwagon. If he is not planning evil, then he isn’t breathing.

  • Flagstaff

    What is his true motive?

    If Rockefeller’s motives are pure, OK, although he seems an unlikely candidate for pure motives. Let’s couple our support with the demand that CPB be completely and permanently defunded.

  • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

    maybe they will be more likely to cave in if we give them a taste of their own medicine.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens
  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    When this year’s version comes out, read it and see if you can find anything wrong with it?

  • Alone_in_the_Dotte

    Most of the new “interoperable” communications systems will be built by a very large Chicago firm whose CEO has stated that Obama is the “salesman in chief” and has been seated next to Obama at White House meetings.

    I’m a former public-safety dispatcher. I’m skeptical of “interoperability” and fear it’s just a means to sell (very) expensive, complex radio systems. With 35 years in emergency management activities, I’m not seeing cops/firefighters/public works people actually talking to each other. Yes, their commanders need to be able to coordinate. (Our current local system is capable of “dynamic regrouping” but I doubt if anyone still knows how and I’m sure it’s never been done.)

    (I’m also a big proponent of “Keep It Simple Stupid.” These APCO 25 digital systems are not simple.)

  • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

    You cannot ever expect good water to flow from a polluted stream.

  • acat

    They really do seem to believe we’re the ones who don’t see the world properly… so any objection that we tie to principle is just another reason why we’re wrong… and they, as our superiors, should just go ahead and decide for us. No, on this I concur with Finrod. (and Neil)

    Mew

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens
  • luciusacius

    something about blind pigs and acorns comes to mind. Simultaneously being stupid and evil, 100 % of the time, is extremely difficult. I think that that would be a stretch for old Jay. Even if Rockefeller is not blind, he does have a number of porcine qualities, so I suspect that Neil is correct and this is just one of those rare instances where the planets are properly aligned and a fair idea is proposed by the left. Even if he has biased motives, public safety is a proper area for government to operate. We just need to read the bill and see who benefits, as in follow the money.

  • drfredc

    Screw this idea of a D block for public this and that. It’s sure to be abused and wasted. Like the next thing they’ll be doing is using it to make free 4G WIFI available for all public union homes, but at a huge cost to those outside the public sector unions… Then they’ll use that closed network to get out the vote, etc, etc.

    In other words, let the general market sort it out. If it had no takers the first time, lower the start bid.

    If getting the various public safety groups to be able to talk to each other is so important, the market can offer that service and product quickly and easily AT MARKET PRICES, just like it can do and does do for many private companies.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    Public safety is a legitimate government function.

    I’m a conservative. I’m not a libertarian.

    If you want some sort of anarchy where police and fire are privatized, well, have fun with that on the moon or something.

  • Bill S

    FCC management of the spectrum is one legitimate function of the federal government.

  • http://www.flaliberty.org scorpio0679

    I think that’s what Kyle is getting at. Rockefeller probably has some ties to industries that will profit from some sort of national emergency communications system.

    What is the point, honestly? If you understand how these types of organizations work and communicate, you will realize that your local police officer being able to talk to an FBI agent or EMT is not very useful. These units have a chain of command, and communication goes up and down the chain of command — and only goes across at some level “upstream”.

    This point that there may be an ulterior motive in selling complex and expensive radio systems strikes a chord with me. I just got back from the Middle East and I am convinced that radio equipment “upgrades” must be a huge cash cow for someone. The Army is replacing $3,800 ASIP radios (which work perfectly fine and do almost everything their successor radio can do) with $24,000 “Harris” radios. The difference is that the Harris is slightly smaller, shaped like a walkie talkie and has some marginally useful additional features.

    Is that worth $20,200 per radio? Is this really necessary at a time when we are spending ourselves into the ground?

    I would look into a Rockefeller connection to the industries that could benefit from the law.

  • http://www.flaliberty.org scorpio0679

    A lot of good sounding solutions are in fact meant to address nonexistent problems. I don’t know if this is needed or not, but since it is coming from Rockefeller, I am EXTREMELY skeptical. The question isn’t whether the solution sounds good, but is the solution needed to begin with?

    Lets start by answering that.

  • theBlur

    This is about public safety. “Alone” may not know what the Motorola (or the competing Ericsson) systems may be able to do, but as a scanner fan, I can tell you that from a listening side, many public agencies down here along the Texas Gulf Coast use them. Down here, what Harris County started ten years ago as the “STARNet” (Southeast Texas Area Regional Network) has evolved into the TxWARN (Texas Wide Area Radio Network). Yes, it is a Motorola SmartZone II system at this time, but with the Block D it can grow.

    Sad thing is, only now is the largest municipality in the area, Houston, joining TxWARN as politics on both sides have kept them off the net.

    Yes, I have heard a Conroe dispatcher call up a PD unit serving a pick-up warrant down in my neighborhood near Galveston. That is what networked public service dispatching is about.

    That is my humble opinion.

  • dajeeps

    A policy such as this is just a continuation of FDR style strong arm tactics that have been used for the government to insert itself into matters citing concern with some prima facie public safety arguments, and then grows its involvement wildly beyond the original rationale.
    Even if it is a good idea and the benefit is worth the bother then we need determine if a law such as the one proposed does it in a way that is equitable to the private parties involved as well as constitutionally sound, rather than just usurping private property for public use without just compensation and treating the constitution that reserves this kind of action to the States as an afterthought. In fact we usually just usurp and make the customers of the companies providing the frequencies, or services, subsidize government use of them. It?s just another way of getting something and making someone else pay for it, without really caring about who is paying or where the money comes from, and that is saying nothing about leaving the door open for other regulation that has nothing to do with public safety under the guise of protecting public spectrum. It?s a way around contract law, treats private property as something to which the government is entitled, and allows father abuse of the distortions of the Commerce Clause that should be remedied instead.
    I think this particular debate separates the ones who are serious about constitutionally limited government, living by the principles of federalism with a high respect for property, and those who are not.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    The spectrum in question is currently unallocated. The D block is one of five blocks made up of the old VHF and UHF broadcast television spectrum. We traded the broadcast television stations their new digital spectrum in exchange for the old, freeing it up for other uses.

    For example Verizon bought the C block in a very high profile auction.

    The D block though… nobody wants it. Nobody was willing even to pay the reserve price in the 2008 auction. It’s time we learned the lessons of 9/11 and put that orphaned spectrum to good use.

  • Raven

    Among my many duties for my unit is Comms Sgt.
    The Harris Radio trumps the ASIP on EVERY practical application and the vast majority of impractical but still possible ones.

    That walkie-talkie design means more for our troops than you seem to think. My squad leaders and team leaders (like myself) no longer need to assign a rifleman to be the radio operator. That means we’re not burdening one of our combat troopers with a 30 Lb radio pack in addition to the 100+ Lbs of gear he’s already carrying.
    It means he’s less of a target. It means the Radio is less of a target.

    Portability, is extremely important.

    It’s also got the ASIP easily beat with clarity. You can actually Understand people on it. Static comes from jamming or distance, not as a function of the radio itself. Making communication easier.

    And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

    Yes. It very much IS worth the $20 Gs extra. Very much worth it.

  • Raven

    A single jammer in the right location can shut down All of NYCs emergency communications. They operate on too narrow a band,.

    Open them up to something as wide as the D-block and jamming them out would be like trying to jam a SINCGARs’ entire range.

    Now, we’re not realistically talking about jamming emergency communications on purpose. We’re looking at the likelihood that a major disaster (9/11 or a major fire) could have so MUCH radio traffic that the effect is the same. It’s already happened a number of times. Right now, the answer is a restriction on who can use a radio and when during those scenarios, restricting the mobility and speed of transfer of information. Which reduces the ability to respond or react. Which is a big reason so many of NYC’s finest didn’t make it out.

    They need more range. Yes, this is necessary.

  • Raven

    Just because of who proposed it. History is replete with examples of that hard, painful lesson.

  • http://www.flaliberty.org scorpio0679

    My MOS is 11-A and I’m light infantry. However, this past deployment my unit was on convoy ops duty. We had both Harris and ASIP radios. I didn’t see any reason for the Harris under those circumstances. I’ve never used it in light infantry ops but I can definitely see the merit based on it being smaller.

    That being said, that’s why they have the MBITR, which is less expensive even than the ASIP. That is the dismounted radio we use in my national guard unit for dismounted ops and it works fine unless you have to get extended range. Within 2km it works fine and it is even more portable than the Harris.

    So even if the Harris is justified for dismounted ops, why is it being deployed in MRAPs and HMMWVs? In fact feedback from my own squad leaders was that they preferred the ASIP.

    Either way, $20k difference in price for the two radios is absolutely ridiculous (in my opinion). I agree that we ought to be fielded cutting edge equipment, but I don’t think that we ought to be paying through the nose for upgrading equipment that works perfectly fine.

  • StandardCandle

    In principle I have 2 issues.

    The FCC is double faced on this. They want to auction the D block to private industry, and enable a public/private partnership to build the network. The D Block being unallocated would require an entirely new set of communications devices/handsets as well as broadcast infrastructure.

    Bottom line… It may be nice to have an emergency band to deal with things on days like 9/11/01. However… its what the D Block is used for in the interim.

    ATT just purchased portions of the D Block on auction. This is likely because they don’t want to see development within that band.

    For those wanting to know what Rockefeller’s objective is here. Its in enabling the FCC to go forward with creating more growth for wireless demand in both the public and private sectors. Ultimately the D block would make for a nice “national wireless infrastructure” as was called for by President Obama in the SOTU and would essentially become the “Government ISP” which would be the gateway to the FCC’s version of Obamacare when “managing” the communications infrastructure and pushing out the private corporations that are ISP’s on the weekend after they’ve sold all their cell phones/service contracts.

    I for one am against any attempt by the Government to get involved with the building up of any infrastructure that Private Industry can do better.

    I am also against any attempt by the Government to drive market growth by strong-arming private corporations into Public/Private partnerships.

    My shotgun analysis is simple. At best this is Rockefeller looking for a “shovel-ready” project to spend money on. At worst this is Rockefeller attempting to assist the FCC in their ongoing battle with ATT and other Internet Service Providers.

  • http://www.flaliberty.org scorpio0679

    For squad ops there is absolutely NO reason why the MBITR isn’t sufficient. A Harris radio can under any argument only be justified for the platoon radio operator. In a dismounted situation, teams within a squad should never be more than a few hundred meters apart and the MBITR works perfectly fine under those conditions.

  • http://www.flaliberty.org scorpio0679

    And a good reason to reject “good sounding” solutions when there isn’t a compelling demand.

  • Raven

    Or any of the other jammers?
    Kills the MBITR even if it’s not supposed to be covering that frequency. Not so much the Harris.

    The Harris is also replacing the ASIP moreso than anything else. That it also replaces the MBITR (and all the other handhelds) with something plainly superior is just a bonus.

    I can understand guys liking the ASIP more than the Harris. They also tend to like the Bravo and Charlie series of ASIP better than the Echo or Fox (until they have to carry them). The controls are simpler and plainer. No worrying about what screen you’re on, everything is right there in switches and dials.
    Sorry, but the control panel that requires is too big.

    We’ve been moving this direction in commo for 20 years or so. Ever since the release of the SINCGARS, which did everything it used to take a semi trailer to carry around.
    Now we have the Harris to do everything the ASIP does.
    When they teach cellphones to frequency hop and encrypt, and communicate directly between each other without going through any additional system, the Harris will go away.

    It’s not just “progress.” It’s Good progress. And, yes, sometimes it’s expensive.

  • olsmithie

    Been following the communications industry for many years.
    There are interoperability plans and standards in most parts of the country.
    The reason many have never been implemented is lack of funding. Switching to a new band exacerbates this problem.

    The use of a new band of frequencies not covered by existing radios is attractive to the manufacturers since it will spur a multi million dollar sales of new equipment.
    Particularly if the government drives the change instead of the market. (Much like GE and the curlycue lightbulb.)

    If some proponent of this bill would care to research Rockefeller’s lobbyist contributions, they likely will find which company is pushing the drive for the new band of frequencies. This lobbyist driven legislation is not party dependent, nor is it new. (Can you say digital TV?)

    Interoperability of emergency services is not a new idea and many advances have been made, though much is lacking in many parts of the country.

    It would be a wonderful thing, I hope proponents are willing to shell out mega bucks from our pockets.

    Regards

  • olsmithie

    http://cio.sc.gov/councilscommittees/palmetto800/

    Regards

  • StandardCandle

    goes into public/private partnerships to build proprietary networks that require proprietary devices that is tightly governed by state controlled requirements with the discovery of other costs like maintenance, governance, and resource allocation… you see there is money to be made in an infrastructure project that is proprietary on the private side, with the private equity costs offset by the wholesale upgrade of all proprietary designs. It’s a government bid without the bid once the infrastructure is built.

    Either way Tax payers pay the cost in the end and it usually brings about a less than free-market solution. Even if its meant to provide a “worthy” service. The devil loves to give you sugar with the lie.

  • olsmithie
  • StandardCandle
  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    I’m talking about legislation.

  • StandardCandle

    I think everyone here knows you lead the charge against the FCC and net nuetrality.

    What I’m saying is whether the D block becomes reserved for emergency services, or auctioned and then a company is forced to open the band to emergency services in certain situations… The FCC gets what it wants… They get private dollars to build the network that they’re looking for, only problem is very few private companies want to go down that path, they know where it leads.

    The legislation gives the FCC what they want in either case, but instead of strong-arming a private company…

    “Rockefeller would fund operation of that network with proceeds from the planned auction of broadcast spectrum reclaimed for wireless broadband.”

    The reality is the auction would likely not be enough to maintian and emergency comms network, even if the emergency comms network “leases” to a private company with a “pre-emptive agreement” to drop its users for the sake of an emergency situation, the entire network will remain underfunded… and it will require the government to come up with the wherewithal to cover the shortfall.

    So in either case the FCC gets what they want, and eventually the Tax payers are left with the bills in perpetuity.

    No thanks… that’s all I’m saying.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    I’m in favor of the government paying for comms for police, fire, paramedics, and others.

  • StandardCandle

    Only it should be done at the state level, not the federal level.

    I would be in support of the legislation if it didn’t receive funding from the auction of wireless blocks in the band…

    If it required a joint state-federal partnership in funding, as well as allowed an open bid process to the free-market to win the govt. contract at the state level, then I would be all for it…

    This legislation is a top-down approach with a backdoor bidding process…. which usually means there is some heavy lobbying going on in the background… there is money to be made here… and the guise is in the interest of provided good comms for emergency services.

    However, I’ll concede I don’t have anything concrete… but as I said before I see 2 conservative principles being ignored here… and for that alone I can’t support it…

    On the other hand… I won’t criticize you for supporting it, because there are some things here that ought to happen, and possibly will under this legislation.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    Why must government bid to buy something from itself? That strikes me as insane. Cargo cult free markets.

  • StandardCandle

    I’m suggesting that if the D block is allocated through this legislation to emergency services… and funded through this legislation for emergency services… the “leasing” aspect of the bill to recompense the cost is a big government fail. Like I said, I’m cool with it being a shared cost between state and federal government. However when some private corporation leases the band, there is not auction at that point.

    This causes some problems.

    If a private corporation doesn’t have to bid against others to build this network, they have NO accountability to the project, just the lease agreement.

    In a lease scenario, the private corporation can build a proprietary network of devices to access the network. Even if they opt out of the lease, the government may have to continue to pay for devices built by that company.

    In today’s hardware market… anyone could be that supplier, and that architect, but managing the long term costs here is what I’m hung up on… and my take so far is the legislation is either short-sighted on this… or they are farsighted on this, and it is by design.

    Like I originally stated… it’s as harmless as a rattlesnake, and rattlesnakes are fairly harmless if you leave them alone.